E-ON forces Greenpeace armada to leave Kingsnorth

A group of ships led by environmental group Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior have been forced to abandon protests against an E.ON-owned coal plant in Kent following legal action by the power company.

According to statements released by Greenpeace on Thursday, campaigners from the group were forced to move on from the controversial facility in Kingsnorth after a high court injunction was issued on behalf of E.ON.

"In the early hours of this morning, after bailiffs served us a high court injunction from the quayside (presumably the action E.ON had talked about earlier in the day), we pulled up our lines and left the jetty by Kingsnorth power station. We're heading, slowly, back to London," Greenpeace stated in a blog entry.

The group claims it was forced to leave the facility earlier than it had hoped, but still managed to complete most of the protest action which it had planned. The injunction was issued in the early hours of Thursday morning following nearly a week of confrontation between Greenpeace and the E.ON at the coal plant, which included the Rainbow Warrior having one of its lines cut to prevent it from docking at the site.

Led by the Rainbow Warrior, a group of Greenpeace ships sailed up the River Medway from London to arrive at the Kingsnorth plant on Wednesday. Together with representatives from a variety of charities and other green groups including The Women's Institute and The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, a delegation of Greenpeace campaigners delivered a declaration calling on E.ON to halt plans for the expansion of its coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth.

"The government has a choice. It can start a green economic revolution by investing in energy efficiency, renewables and carbon capture and storage. Or it can sanction dirty coal developments like Kingsnorth," said Graham Wynne, chief executive of the RSPB. "Coal-fired power stations without carbon storage will destroy our chances of meeting the new 80 per target for emissions cuts. The future of our natural environment rests on decisions like this."

The decision to allow the development to continue at Kinsnorth is one of the biggest environmental issues the UK government faces according to green campaigners. "Not only will it emit as much CO2 as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined, it will also open the floodgates to a devastating new coal rush in the UK, locking us into high levels of emissions for decades to come," Greenpeace claimed in a statement.

Environmental groups also refute claims that the impact of new coal plants can be reduced by carbon capture and storage technology. "So-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is still in its infancy and may not be ready for years, if at all," Greenpeace added.

In October 2006, E.ON announced plans to develop the Kingsnorth site by building what it calls two new cleaner coal plants. E.ON claims the 1,600MW facility would be 20 per cent more efficient than the current plant. "We as a company are also very concerned about climate change, which is one of the reasons we are closing the existing Kingsnorth plant by the end of 2015 and planning to build a much more efficient station," said Alan Sanderson, plant manager at Kingsnorth in a recent statement.

E.ON was contacted for direct comment on the decision to issue the High Court injunction against Greenpeace at Kingsnorth, but did not reply in time for this article.